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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Note from Media dis&dat: This practice has been around since the 1980s. When I was a journalist in Texas then, Texas sent mentally ill people from the state via Greyhound.

From The Sacramento Bee: In the picture, James Flavy Coy Brown, who suffers from mood disorders, is reunited with his daughter Shotzy Faith Harrison in Sacramento after a Nevada psychiatric hospital bused him to the capital with no medication or identification.

Over the past five years, Nevada's primary state psychiatric hospital has put hundreds of mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities and towns across America.

Since July 2008, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas has transported more than 1,500 patients to other cities via Greyhound bus, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States, according to a Bee review of bus receipts kept by Nevada's mental health division.

In recent years, as Nevada has slashed funding for mental health services, the number of mentally ill patients being bused out of southern Nevada has steadily risen, growing 66 percent from 2009 to 2012.

During that same period, the hospital has dispersed those patients to an ever-increasing number of states.
By last year, Rawson-Neal bused out patients at a pace of well over one per day, shipping nearly 400 patients to a total of 176 cities and 45 states across the nation.

Nevada's approach to dispatching mentally ill patients has come under scrutiny since one of its clients turned up suicidal and confused at a Sacramento homeless services complex. James Flavy Coy Brown, who is 48 and suffers from a variety of mood disorders including schizophrenia, was discharged in February from Rawson-Neal to a Greyhound bus for Sacramento, a place he had never visited and where he knew no one.

The hospital sent him on the 15-hour bus ride without making arrangements for his treatment or housing in California; he arrived in Sacramento out of medication and without identification or access to his Social Security payments. He wound up in the UC Davis Medical Center's emergency room, where he lingered for three days until social workers were able to find him temporary housing.

Nevada mental health officials have acknowledged making mistakes in Brown's case, but have made no apologies for their policy of busing patients out of state. Las Vegas is an international destination and patients who become ill while in the city have a right to return home if they desire, the state's health officer, Dr. Tracey Green, told Nevada lawmakers during a hearing last month.

She and others insist that the vast majority of patients they are discharging to the Main Street bus station are mentally stable and have family members, treatment programs or both waiting for them at the end of their rides.

That was not true in Brown's case. His papers from Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services read: "Discharge to Greyhound bus station by taxi with 3 day supply of medication" and provided a vague suggestion for further treatment: "Follow up with medical doctor in California." Brown said staff at Rawson-Neal advised him to call 911 when he arrived in Sacramento.

Nevada Health and Human Services Director Michael Willden told lawmakers last month that while health officials "blew it" in their handling of Brown, an internal investigation found no pattern of misconduct.
But an investigation by the Nevada State Health Division documented several other instances from a small sampling of cases in February in which the state hospital violated written rules for safely discharging mentally ill patients.

Other apparent violations surfaced during The Bee's investigation.

At least two patients from the Nevada system arrived in San Francisco during the past year "without a plan, without a relative," said Jo Robinson, director of that city's Behavioral Health Services department.

"We're fine with taking people if they call and we make arrangements and make sure that everything is OK for the individual," Robinson said. "But a bus ticket with no contact, no clinic receptor, anything, it's really not appropriate."

Robinson said she viewed the practice as "patient dumping," and has reported it to federal authorities. "It's offensive to me that they would show this lack of care for a client," she said.

Practice called risky

Nevada mental health officials did not respond to repeated requests for phone interviews for this story, nor would they address a list of emailed questions about the origins of the busing policy and the safety protocols in place.

Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, the agency that oversees Rawson-Neal, maintains detailed written policies for transporting patients "to their home communities," with the stated goal of providing more appropriate care by the most economical means possible.

The policy includes a special section on "Travel Nourishment Protocol," specifying the number of bottles of Ensure nutritional supplement the patient should receive for the bus trip – essentially six per day.
Staff members are supposed to fill out a "Client Transportation Request" form, which includes questions about whether the patient is willing to go, whether housing or shelter has been verified, and the cost of the trip.

The written policy calls for staff to confirm that a patient has housing or shelter available "and a support system to meet client at destination." They are to provide information about "mental health services available in the home community."

Interviews with health officials in California and numerous other states indicate Nevada's practices are unusual. None of the 10 state mental health agencies contacted by The Bee said that placing a psychiatric patient on a bus without support would be permissible. And none recalled being contacted by Rawson-Neal to make arrangements for a patient coming from Nevada.

In California, where most public mental health treatment is overseen at the county level, agencies contacted by The Bee said they rarely bus patients and that Nevada's practices seem out of step with the standard of care.

Several described the practice as risky, even if patients have someone waiting for them at the end of their journeys.

"Putting someone whose mental illness makes them unable to care for themselves alone on a bus for a long period of time could be absolutely disastrous," said Dorian Kittrell, executive director of the Sacramento CountyMental Health Treatment Center.

Patients could suffer relapses during their trips and potentially harm themselves or other people, said Kittrell and others. They could become lost to the streets or commit crimes that land them in jail.

"The risk is just too great," said Dr. Marye Thomas, chief of behavioral health for Alameda County.

Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services has had an ongoing contract with Greyhound since July 2009, said bus company spokesman Timothy Stokes.

Stokes said he was unaware of any serious incidents involving mentally ill patients from Nevada. He said Greyhound has contracts with "a number" of hospitals around the country, but declined to identify them.

"We take it on good faith that the organization is going to make certain that patients are not a risk to themselves or others," he said.

Still, officials in several of California's largest counties said they rarely, if ever, bus patients out of state.
"We don't do it, we never will do it, and we haven't done it in recent memory, meaning at least 20 years," said David Wert, public information officer for San Bernardino County. Rawson-Neal has bused more than 40 patients to that county since July 2008.

Los Angeles County officials said they have not bused a single patient out of state during the past year, and when they have done so in the past they have supplied chaperones. In the past five years, L.A. County has received 213 people from the Nevada hospital, according to The Bee's review, more than any place in the country.

Likewise, in Riverside County, sending patients out of state "happens very infrequently upon request of the family," said Jerry Wengerd, head of the county's Department of Mental Health. "A staff member accompanies the client and it is usually by air." Nevada bused 20 patients to Riverside in the period reviewed.

Sacramento County bought bus tickets for five patients during the past year, Kittrell said. In all cases, he said, facility staff confirmed before patients departed that a family member or friend would meet them at their destinations, and provided referrals for treatment.

Organizations that advocate for mentally ill people said Nevada's busing numbers seem unjustifiably high.
DJ Jaffe, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org., a nonprofit think tank, said his group often hears anecdotally about patients being "dumped" from one county to another.

"Discharging severely mentally ill patients inappropriately is policy in this country," Jaffe said. "But getting rid of them altogether by busing them out of state is, I think, rare. I am shocked by these figures. It seems to be almost routine in Nevada."

After California, Arizona has received the most patients by bus from Nevada, at more than 100 over the five years.

But Cory Nelson, acting deputy director for the Arizona Department of Health, cautioned against drawing conclusions about Nevada's practices based solely on number of bus tickets issued. In many cases, Nelson said, relatives could have agreed to house patients or made treatment arrangements before the clients left Las Vegas.

In rare cases, Nelson said, a hospital can find itself in a Catch-22 situation when a patient no longer needs to be in a hospital but refuses to cooperate with a discharge plan. "It kind of leaves a hospital in a tough situation," he said.

Still, the sheer number of patients bused from the Nevada hospital "does seem pretty high," he said.

Several people interviewed said the numbers might be explained in part by the unusual nature of Las Vegas.

"As the whole country no doubt knows, Vegas is a pretty unique place," said Dr. Lorin Scher, an emergency room psychiatrist with UC Davis Health System.

The city's entertainment and casino culture draws people from all over the world, Scher noted, including the mentally ill.

"Many bipolar patients impulsively fly across the country to Vegas during their manic phases and go on gambling binges," he said. "Vegas probably attracts more wandering schizophrenic people" who are attracted to the warm weather, lights and action, he added.

He said Rawson-Neal has been under siege for years because of state budget cuts, a steady increase in poor people needing mental health services in the Las Vegas area and a revolving door of administrators.

He noted the city had a disproportionate number of people displaced by the housing and mortgage meltdown of a few years ago.

"The casino boom was over, people were losing their jobs and their homes. They were stressed and they wound up in a mental health crisis," Ghertner said.

Between 2009 and 2012, Nevada slashed spending on mental health services by 28 percent to address budget deficits, according to data collected by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Even before those cuts, Nevada fell well below the national average in spending on mental health services: In 2009, it spent $64 per capita on such services compared with a national average of about $123, according to the study.

"You're looking at a tsunami situation," said Ghertner, a psychologist who resigned last year after five years as agency director. "There is more pressure to turn patients over faster, and fewer programs (in which) to place them. Perhaps busing them became the easier solution."

It also is cheaper, he noted. Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services spent a total of $205,000 putting patients on Greyhound buses during the past five years, according to The Bee analysis. The state hospital admits about 4,000 patients a year to its inpatient unit, and inpatient care runs around $500 per day per client, Ghertner said.

He said he was aware during his tenure that Rawson-Neal was busing patients out of state but that he thought the practice was rare.

At the time, "I had 800 employees and a $106 million budget," he said. Ghertner regularly reviewed numbers pertaining to admissions, length of stay and other issues at the hospital, but patient busing was never on his radar, he said.

"I'm embarrassed to say that this practice was going on to this degree under my leadership," he said. "I had no idea. It just never came up."

Ghertner said the state mental hospital has been under stress since it opened in 2006, turning over five hospital directors since that time. That instability has taken a toll, he said.

"This busing issue is a symptom that reflects that the care there is not quality care," he said. "Things clearly are being missed."

Willden, Nevada's Health and Human Services director, said during last month's legislative hearing that policies have been tightened and disciplinary actions taken to ensure that patients are discharged only after the hospital confirms care and treatment at their planned destinations. The hospital administrator, Chelsea Szklany, now must approve all bus discharges ordered by medical staff, he said.

Rawson-Neal could lose vital federal funding pending an ongoing probe by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. California state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has written a letter expressing outrage to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

The hospital's discharge practices also have prompted a call for action by a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Commissioner David Kladney called for a broad investigation by Nevada's governor and Legislature.

"As a Nevadan, I am ashamed that my state is failing in its duty toward the neediest residents," Kladney said. Nevada, he said, appears to be "simply hoping that other states will shoulder the responsibility."

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

For Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer (pictured) and Golden Globe nominee Bryce Dallas Howard, who worked together on the hit 2011 film The Help, Lifetime's Call Me Crazy: A Five Film was a chance to collaborate again.

For Brittany Snow, Call Me Crazy was an opportunity to work with Spencer, Howard and other accomplished women including Jennifer Aniston — one of the project's executive producers — and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson.

Still, the all-star ensemble cast isn't the only reason these actors have come together in Call Me Crazy, five interwoven stories that focus on mental illness and its impact on those it affects, their friends and families (Saturday, 8 ET/PT).

"Aside from the fact that I loved all the people involved as well as the message behind the film, this is very close to me, because it's about something that I felt I had some understanding of," says Howard. She went through what she calls "extreme clinical depression" after the birth of her first child.

"Being part of something that will help to shed light on the nature of depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder," says Howard, is "very moving to me."

The film's message, in part, says Spencer, is that "mental illness is non-discriminant. It crosses all racial categories, all socioeconomic levels, all educational levels, all genders.

"I just thought it would be best to be part of something that would enlighten people," Spencer says, "and show that people can live productive lives with the right medication and therapy."

Call Me Crazy is a follow-up to the Lifetime's 2011 original movie Five, whose cast included Patricia Clarkson, Rosario Dawson and Bob Newhart. With the focus on breast cancer, Five, like Crazy, told interconnected stories on a single subject. Directors of those five shorts included Aniston, Demi Moore and Alicia Keys.

Each of the Call Me Crazy stories is named for its title character, and the directors, like the actors, are stars in their own right.

• Lucy, directed by Howard, stars Snow as a law-school student struggling with schizophrenia. Spencer is her psychotherapist, and Jason Ritter is a friend she meets after being institutionalized.

• And Maggie, directed by Ashley Judd, stars Jennifer Hudson as a war veteran struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder; Snow's Lucy also plays a key role in Crazy's final short.

"This film is so great because its not a PSA telling you about what to do and what the signs are," says Snow. "This is a film about people who are family and friends of ours, maybe even ourselves. It sheds some hope on a subject that isn't talked about that much."

The pieces show "what these people are going through and the strength that they have," says Snow, "but I also think people who have mental illness can watch and hopefully connect with these characters."

The film's primary message, says Spencer, is enlightenment.

"If we get one person to seek help. If we get one family to open their doors to a person who's afflicted and offer them solace and help, then we've done our job," says Spencer. "I hope that we somehow strike a chord and that people learn as much as they can about these illnesses."

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

We are thrilled to announce the launch of
Listen Up,
the first of two public service announcements that we've created for
Autism Acceptance Month. Listen Up features Henry Frost, Amy Sequenzia,
and Kevin Barrett telling the world that the Autistic community can
speak for itself.

Help us
change the national conversation on autism from one that largely occurs
without autistic people to a conversation that frames our voices as
central. Acceptance is an action, as we've been saying all month, and
now it's time for us to take action and reclaim our seat at the table.

We're
very excited about Listen Up, about autism acceptance, and about the
prospect of seeing our PSA aired on television and virally online. So
listen up! Together, we can change the national conversation on autism!

Following consumer complaints, a
regional ad for its Big Mac that parodies mental illness -- featuring a
familiar photo of a woman who appears to be crying with her head in her
hand -- has been yanked by the fast-food giant from Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority subway trains. The headline in the ad states:
"You're not alone." But the small print underneath says, "Millions of
people love the Big Mac."

Worst of all: The ad includes a
toll-free phone number that connects consumers to McDonald's customer
satisfaction line. A recording asks consumers if they want to share an
"experience" that they had at a McDonald's restaurant.

"The worst
possible situation is if someone in an emotional crisis were to see that
image and call that number," says Bob Carolla, spokesman for the
National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It would be a cruel mistake."

Mistake,
indeed. The public relations blunder comes at a time other big-name
brands have made similar PR miscues. A recent Ford ad in India depicted
sexy women tied up in the back of a Ford Figo. Nabisco has received
complaints about a Wheat Thins spot featuring a puppet who is so
obsessed with the savory crackers that it must be tied in a
straitjacket by mental health workers. And now this McDonald's ad, which
appeared on subway trains in the Boston area.

McDonald's has apologized, blaming its regional
agency for posting an ad that it did not approve. "We can confirm this
ad was not approved by McDonald's," the statement says. "As soon as we
learned about it, we asked that it be taken down immediately."

Pam
Hamlin, president of the Boston office of the ad agency Arnold
Worldwide -- which remains McDonald's regional agency -- also
apologized, in a statement. "Arnold apologizes for its mistake to
McDonald's and to anyone who was offended by the ad," she says. "We've
addressed the issue and have improved our approval process."

But the damage has been done.

Paine,
the PR specialist, says McDonald's needs to be more transparent and not
just finger-point at its ad agency. "In an ideal world, they would be
more transparent about the approval process" that was not obeyed by the
agency, she says.

Carolla, the NAMI spokesman, says that
advertising agencies tend to be the worst offenders in perpetuating
mental illness stereotypes. "Either they don't think," he says, "or they
just don't care."

They waited years for this moment. And in the new season of The Little Couple, Dr. Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein finally get a glimpse of their first child.

In this sneak peek from TLC, the couple meet with an adoption expert, who soon shows them photos of the child they will eventually go on to adopt – a 3-year-old boy named Ben from China who, like them, has a form of dwarfism.

"Oh, he's so cute!" Arnold says as she sees the photos for the first time. "He's a happy guy. He looks so happy."

Arnold adds: "The moment I saw him, I knew that I wanted Ben. I
could just envision myself taking him home and having him running around
the living room and him being part of our family."

It's been a long road to parenthood
for the couple. They have been trying to use a surrogate to have a baby
because of the challenges a pregnancy can pose to Arnold's health. (She
and Klein both have skeletal dysplasia, a bone-growth disorder that
causes dwarfism.)

Two years ago, they were able to transfer an embryo to a surrogate, but the surrogate later miscarried.

Along with their recent foray into adoption, Arnold and Klein
say they are continuing to explore surrogacy as a way to expand their
family.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

For many people living with autism, it takes years to carve a place in life where they can thrive.

But for Matt Kaiser (pictured), it took more than three decades for the diagnosis to come. Finding his niche was a much simpler journey.

"I've found that when I perform on stage, I'm a different person than
when I'm not performing," said Kaiser, who has found his passion as a
comedian since being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a type of autism.
"When I'm not performing, I tend to be a little bit off to the side and
to myself, and that's kind of gotten me in trouble. … A lot of people
were misconceiving me in every way possible. Being in the dark for 35
years, I didn't know why."

It wasn't discovered that Kaiser, 39, had Asperger syndrome until he
was 35. Since then, the Towson University graduate has honed his comedic
skills and recently began teaching them to others in a new program at
Towson's Hussman Center for Adults with Autism. His goal is to open
doors of self-discovery for others who live with autism.

Autism is a developmental disorder that appears early in life, and
affects the brain's normal development of social and communication
skills. The effects of autism are different for each person with it.
Though symptoms can include cognitive and physical impairments, people
living with autism also typically excel at something.

The comedy program, which began in March, has eight registered
participants and meets once a week in the center's space at the newly
renovated Towson City Center. There, too, the Catonsville resident is
far from the man who used to stand on the periphery.

"I'm just a different person when I'm performing — same goes with
when I'm conducting a class or a workshop like this," he said. "I'm, in
essence, in performance mode."

On Tuesday, April 9, the third meeting of the workshop, Kaiser worked
with participants, many of whom are in their 20s, along with university
student mentors on improvisation games using props. The participants
brought their own props and acted out scenes with creative uses for
each.

Before the session started, the participants stood apart from each
other and didn't interact much. But as the program progressed,
connections were made and smiles grew.

Since the program began, Rhonda Greenhaw, director of the Hussman
Center, said she's seen the participants open up and connect with their
"artistic selves."

"For so many of the participants, for their whole life they've been
told to do things differently," Greenhaw said. "Initially, they feel
like … they can't even connect" to what they were watching.

"They can't even connect to something unique and original. They want
somebody to tell them, 'What should I do?' Just by providing them with a
safe and supportive environment, we've really seen people break out of
that, to really connect with it," she said.

As she has seen with participants in the center's other programs, it
has taken a while for some of them to open up in a more structured
setting.

"A lot of our participants come ... to our programs with this
mistrust and this sense that, "Oh, I'm going to come to another place
and be told that I need to change, and how much work I need to do and
how many deficits I have.' " Greenhaw said. "This is very different.
This is all about your strengths and connecting to yourself and using
those things to really come into your own, and I think that's really
meaningful."

That they're taking their cues from someone who, despite not being
diagnosed with autism until his mid-30s, can relate to them and shares
their experiences of feeling different from those around them.

'Everything clicking into place'

Kaiser found his niche while in the acting program at Towson
University, which he graduated from in 2010. He said some aspects of the
program weren't clicking for him, but then an instructor who saw him
thrive in mime and movement classes suggested he take a techniques in
comedy class.

"Of course, I did, and suddenly everything was clicking into place," Kaiser said.

Now, his repertoire includes the mime, physical comedy, improv,
standup and prop work he learned in that class. He's taken three classes
at the famed Second City Improv Theater in Chicago, and hones his craft
at comedy shows and workshops in the Baltimore/Washington area.

He got plenty of laughs from the participants on Tuesday. After
teaching them to use the props, he put on his own prop routine using a
collapsible neon yellow tube. He flopped around the floor and used the
tube as an elephant trunk, inchworm, a snorkel and Groucho Marx' cigar.
He invited participants to show their own ideas during his display.

During the participant's prop routines, he was empathetic and
supportive, encouraging applause and pointing out their particularly
clever uses of the items.

He participated with the previous incarnation of the Adults with
Autism program on campus, before it moved to Towson City Center. After
attending a couple of events, he and Greenhaw established a program for
him to teach his passion to others on the autism spectrum.

He worked with his job coach, Susan Howarth, on a proposal for a
weekly program, and although all parties were apprehensive before the
first class, Kaiser was a natural teacher and Howarth has been thrilled
to see him thrive in the setting.

"One of the reasons I think he wanted to do this was he wanted to
help other autistic people learn other communication modes where they're
comfortable," she said. "For me to watch him in this situation — it's
just so cool."

Saturday, April 13, 2013

TORONTO – A collection of dolls with the facial characteristics of Down Syndrome has sparked debate online.

Connie Feda, the mother of a child with Down Syndrome, hopes to launch Dolls for Downs next month.

“We’ve got a lot of pre-orders from Canada,” she told Global News on Wednesday.

Feda claims she has received nearly 500 pre-orders from several countries.

“Considering we don’t have the vinyl version yet, and people are
ordering largely by description, we expect that number to double with
actual photographs,” she said.

Feda plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign on Friday to raise funds
needed to manufacture and market the 12 female and six male dolls. Each
sells for $75 plus shipping.

Feda, who lives in Pittsburgh, said her daughter Hannah was frustrated that none of the dolls she saw looked like her.

Feda collaborated with Karen Scott, a doll sculptor in Michigan, to come up with a prototype.

The dolls stand about 18 inches and are available with a variety of
skin tones and hair colours and can be customized with a “heart scar,”
which many children with Down Syndrome have.

Clothing for the dolls is designed to address sensory issues through the use of Velcro, snaps and large buttons.

The collection includes optional accessories like leg braces and feeding tubes.

Not everyone believes the dolls are a good idea. Calgary’s Krista
Flint, former executive director of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society
(CDSS), fears the dolls perpetuate the notion that people with Down
Syndrome all look alike.

“Not every person with Down syndrome has almond shaped eyes, or a
single palm crease, or an exaggerated space between thier (sic) toes, or
a flattened nose bridge,” she wrote on her blog, InclusiveHumanity.com.

Feda said she has the “full support” of the U.S. National Down Syndrome Society.

In a statement, the organization said: “Any doll or toy that builds
confidence and is fun for a child with Down Syndrome is great.”

Feda said she would welcome an opportunity to speak with the CDSS and
other Canadians advocating for children with Down Syndrome.

“My doll is more than a toy,” she said. “It’s a well thought-out therapy aid.”

A Los Angeles-based producer plans to bring Terry Fox's story to a
global audience with a new film about his 1980 Marathon of Hope.

Toronto-raised Kelly Slattery of Los Angeles-based Therapy Content announced plans for Terry Fox: The Feature Film on Friday, the anniversary of the beginning of Fox’s run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

She has started a Kickstarter campaign to back the film, saying any
proceeds of the feature, to be released in 2014, will go to The Terry
Fox Foundation, which supports cancer research.

Fox, who had lost a leg to bone cancer, dipped his artificial foot
into the Atlantic Ocean off St. John's on April 12, 1980, and began
running across Canada in aid of cancer research.

Fox, 21, ran for 143 days and was cut short in his journey because of
the recurrence of cancer. He died on June 28, 1981, but by then he had
captured hearts across the country and become a national hero.

Slattery recalled how her father, an Adidas executive, was touched by a letter he received from Fox asking for support.

"Terry Fox was a religion in our home,” said the Toronto-raised
producer. “To my family, he represented a selflessness that is rarely
seen in the world today."

Slattery has secured film development rights for Terry Fox: The Feature Film and has the co-operation of the Fox family, she said in a press release.

"We are excited by the opportunities offered in a theatre release to
share Terry's vision and values with a global audience," Darrell Fox,
brother of Terry, is quoted as saying.

"We are very thankful for Kelly's intentions of generating revenue
for cancer research, which go hand and hand with Terry's Marathon of
Hope intentions of reducing the suffering caused by cancer."

The Vancouver-based Terry Fox Foundation, which sponsors annual runs
and other fundraisers in his name, has raised millions for cancer
research in the past 33 years.

Slattery said funds raised through crowd-funding site Kickstarter
will go towards film production costs, so that more of the proceeds of
the film can be put toward cancer research.

Two TV movies have been made about Terry Fox's story — one in 1983 and another in 2005.

With standard manual wheelchairs, users have to grasp and push the
rim extending from the back wheels. It’s okay for self-propulsion, but
it takes a toll on shoulder and arm muscles.

This new wheel reduces the amount of energy expended by targeting bigger muscles: "Using a mechanical device called a planetary gear,
Nasser redesigned the wheel hub so that users pull it backwards in a
rowing motion to go forward. Planetary gears are used in automatic
transmissions and power tools to reverse and reduce motion, but no
wheelchair wheels on the market currently use this design."

Pulling uses larger, stronger muscle groups, while pushing a
wheelchair uses little muscles in the front of the body (which also
hunches over the upper body). This rowing motion reduces wear and tear,
and users can stay upright (which improves breathing).

“If a typical user pushes 2,000 to 3,000 times a day, on average, my
redesign came out to 330,050 less strokes a year,” Nasser says. The
wheel can be fitted onto existing chairs.

“Some 1.8 million folks use manual wheelchairs in the U.S. — so
there’s a big market out there for these wheels,” says Rimas Buinevicius
of Madcelreator, a company that helps early stage firms bring their
ideas to market.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Many people don’t want to think about the
possibility of going blind, but image if you were an aware winning
director and journalist who learns that they are going blind?

Peabody
Award winning journalist Joe Lovett has this happen to him, and rather than give up, he did what he does best. He made a documentary (Going Blind)
about his journey to better understand what was happening to himself
along with drawing inspiration from others in his travels.

‘Going
Blind’ not only wound up helping Lovett’s journey slow down the course
of his disease through medication and surgeries, it’s helped countless
others learn how to deal with suffering vision issues and realize that
it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. To see when it’s playing in
your area you can check out the PBS Going Blind Broadcast link.

Below
are some of the stories he followed in the making of this powerful
documentary that’s been under the radar but is a must see for anyone
with or without vision. It’s also a great push to remind people to get
their eyes checked yearly just to be safe. We take our vision for
granted, but after watching this film, you won’t. And it’s not a downer
either, it’s very inspirational as the sub-title Coming Out Of the Dark
About Vision Loss states.

Steve Baskis - Roadside bomb attack

Texas native Steve Baskis was 22 and Private First Class in the Army
when a roadside bomb north of Baghdad hit his vehicle. In addition to
injuries all over his body, Steve suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury
(TMI) when shrapnel from the bomb caused nerve damage to his eyes,
leaving him blind. Going Blind documents Steve’s transition from
recovery to his new life at his own apartment, designed by himself for
independent living as a blind person.

Ray Kornman- Retinitis Pigmentosa
At age 29 while
at a routine doctor’s visit to renew his contact lens prescription, Ray
Kornman discovered he had retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable eye disease
that would leave him blind by the age of 40. In Going Blind, Ray
discloses his initial feelings of hopelessness and vulnerability before
learning of the various services available for the blind. Now, secure in
his condition and content with his life, Ray’s mission is to spread the
message about the power of guide dogs.

Emmet Teran – Strabismus
Emmet is an eleven
year old [when filmed] with low vision from albinism, a condition he
inherited from his father. Emmet works with a comedy troupe after school
in Manhattan, and uses humor to dismiss some of the hurts a child
encounters from his peers.

Peter D’Elia- Age-related Macular Degeneration

Peter is a New Jersey architect, and has lost vision in his left eye to maculardegeneration. His career was in jeopardy when he noticed that he could
not see out of his right eye. His passion for architecture gives him the
drive to continue working, and the advent of new medication for wet
macular degeneration restored his sight.

Patricia Williams- Glaucoma and Traumatic Injury
Pat is a legally blind woman still struggling with her place in the
sighted world, as well as in the visually impaired community. She works
as a program support assistant at the VA center in New York City. The
enlarged type on her computer screen has helped her flourish in her job.
While at times she needs some help getting around, Pat is a fiercely
independent woman who does not let her disability define her.

Debenhams
looks to increase its diversity of models in its latest look book
campaign, with faces including Paralympian amputee Stefanie Reid (pictured); a
69-year-old model; and the face of the recent Plus Size Fashion Week.

Ed Watson, director of PR at Debenhams, said: “Our customers are not
the same shape or size so our latest look book celebrates this
diversity. We would be delighted if others followed our lead. Hopefully
these shots will be a step, albeit a small one, towards more people
feeling more comfortable about their bodies.”

Other faces included in the campaign include alternative model,
Kelly, born without her left forearm and discovered when she won TV show
‘Missing Next Top Model’; and Philomena, a size 18 model who wants to
be Britain’s first black plus size supermodel.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Humor was used onscreen and off at April 2 preem of
Gravitas Ventures’ “The Story of Luke” at the Laemmle Music Hall in
Beverly Hills, where thespians and creatives took a light-hearted approach
to the serious topic of autism.

“I wanted something entertaining that’s not too heavy so the movie has comedic and romantic elements,” said scribe-helmer Alonso Mayo.
“Too many movies have the hard drama on this topic and are very
depressing. In my experience, I saw a lot of hope, laughter and
happiness. I wanted people to see a side they haven’t seen before. It’s
not just something to be scared about.”

Even though Lou Taylor Pucci’s character shares the same disorder as Dustin Hoffman’s in “Rain Man,” Pucci took a different approach.

“The generalities are all there,” he explained,
“their inability to focus, their repetition of ritual. But I needed to
create a totally fictional character out of nowhere. What it ended up
being was a morph of four different families with an autism member I had
met who helped create somebody just for me to play.”

Seth Green’s character is also autistic. With one arm wrapped around wife Clare Grant and a bag of Sour Patch Kids in the other, the actor explained his approach.

“I like to play things really straight on and pretty
honestly and humor naturally comes out of that,” said Green. “So I try
not to go for any laughs or make anything seem forced.”

Saturday, April 6, 2013

An article from USA Today Sept. 5, 2011 in which film critic Roger Ebert talks about his new life with disabilities caused by cancer. Ebert died April 4, 2013.

CHICAGO
–
Roger Ebert
has always been a man of many words. Insightful ones. Sincere ones.
Often quite sublime ones. Some have even been known to sting, as those
slammed in one of his negative movie reviews can attest — that means
you, Transformers: Dark of the Moon director Michael Bay, and your "gigantic and hideous robots."

After 44 years as one of America's pre-eminent
film critics, this Pulitzer-winning pundit is more productive than ever
as he continues to churn out weekly reviews for the venerable Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, plus make appearances on his revived weekly TV show, now called Ebert Presents at the Movies.

At
an age — 69 — when retirement usually beckons, Ebert has willed himself
into being reborn as a virtual whiz kid. He has fully embraced social
networking, an activity he once derided, with the sort of late-life
desire Hugh Hefner exhibits when welcoming a fresh supply of twin Playmates to the mansion.

Ebert has accumulated nearly 70,000 "likes" on his Facebook page and
524,015 followers on Twitter. His blog has racked up 111 million views
in the past year. And how many journalists can boast of having their own
iPhone app?

Not that this film fanatic is giving up on older forms of communication. Arriving next week: his first memoir.

But there is a sad reality behind the networking: Ebert can no longer
speak after cancer, which began with a tumor that was removed in 1987
and reoccurred years later, robbed him of his voice in 2006. Multiple
surgeries to battle the disease that ravaged his thyroid, salivary
glands and jaw left him with a chin whose skin dangles loosely and
leaves a gap where his throat should be. Eating and drinking are also
out, replaced by a feeding tube.

Those cutting remarks that served him so well whenever he and Gene Siskel— his Chicago Tribune
rival and combative TV reviewing partner of 24 years, who died in 1999
from a brain tumor — would vehemently disagree over the thumbs-up or
thumbs-down status of a film? Forever silenced.

But
at least his words haven't failed him. His Amazon page shows he has
written or co-written 23 titles, mainly movie-themed compendiums. But
No. 24 is a different story: his own.

A tough new 'Life'

The nearly 500 pages of Life Itself: A Memoir
(Grand Central Publishing, $28, on sale Sept. 13) covers his eventful
existence, which began with his happy boyhood in Urbana, Ill., spent as a
budding bookworm and self-described "little jerk." Chapters touch upon
his geeky fascination with science-fiction fanzines; the great tragedy
of Blackie the dog; his run-ins with racism while studying in Cape Town
on a Rotary scholarship in 1965; and his free-flowing interview with an
inebriated Lee Marvin during the making of 1969's Paint Your Wagon.

Last year, Ebert made headlines by going public in Esquire,
detailing how he has adapted after his medical ordeals and bravely
revealing his new, altered face on the magazine's cover. Once again, he
is welcoming a fellow member of the press into his five-story red-brick
brownstone in shady Lincoln Park, which he shares with Chaz, his wife of almost 20 years.

The
August sun streams in on the second floor, reachable by elevator, where
Ebert spends most of his hours. A bed is in the center of a library
whose walls are obscured behind shelves groaning with books (he refers
to them as "shrines to my past hours"). A bathroom and office are
nearby. Tasteful clutter and museum-quality art abound.

The
centerpiece of a cozy denlike work area is a black leather anti-gravity
reclining chair, where Ebert types with his laptop propped up on a worn
wooden tray. Chaz says it is the only seat that offers any relief to
her husband's pain-racked body, left battered after several failed tries
by doctors to use borrowed bone, skin and tissue to repair his jaw
area. Directly in his line of vision hangs a black-and-white photo of a
Steak 'n Shake eatery, a fave hangout of yore.

Occasionally,
Ebert makes a sound that is a cross between a wheeze and a cough, as if
clearing his head. Gauze is wrapped around his neck to protect the
exposed area under his chin, and he walks with a careful shuffle, his
jeans sagging in the back, hip-hop style. His liquid diet is highly
conducive to weight loss.

"My health remains
excellent," he says in an earlier e-mail, "apart from my obvious
physical troubles. It is difficult for me to walk long distances — more
than 15 blocks, say. Oddly, however, it is more painful for me to stand
than to walk."

After doing mostly movie-linked
titles in the past, how does he feel about his life literally becoming
an open book? "It's a bigger feeling," he says in person with the aid of
text-to-speech software hooked up to his MacBook Pro,
which mimics the pattern and timbre of his lost voice. "I began with
misgivings, and I believe everything turned out all right."

While
many highs are celebrated, Ebert is admirably candid about the lows. He
comes clean about his alcoholism (he sobered up in 1979), his tense
relationship with his elderly mother and his extended bachelorhood,
romantic conquests included. As he says, "In for a dime, in for a
dollar. I'm only going to write one memoir, and it might as well be
honest."

The book is an outgrowth of his blog
at rogerebert.com, which he started in 2008. "The first comments that
came in to my journal were electrifying. I was still writing from my
hospital bed, and I realized there were people out there — not
'readers,' but intelligent and articulate individuals. I now receive
more online messages in a day than I did by snail mail in a month."

Talking
with Ebert in person can be a frustrating experience for both him and
others. He scribbles notes on a small spiral pad, traces words on
surfaces and uses hand gestures and noises. But they are sorry
substitutes for actual speech. "People have little patience with those
who can't talk," he says. "At parties and benefits, I sit there like the
village idiot, which is frankly why tributes are an ordeal. Especially
now that I often inspire standing ovations simply by not having died."

Chaz
says his legion of admirers should beware of mistaking her husband for
a warm and fuzzy guy. "He is good-hearted. But that is not his basic
disposition. He doesn't want to be 'poor Roger.' "

'Better than he's ever been'

Yet
engaging with people on the Web has set him free, and Ebert's regulars
have noticed a resurgence of passion and vigor in the phrases that pour
out of him in his reveries. "Online, my entire mind comes into play, and
I feel a hunger to express myself," he says. "I imagine I would be
desperate if it weren't for the Internet."

If
Ebert was an inspiration before to wordsmiths and aspiring critics, a
vanishing breed as print journalism continues its decline, he's a
revelation now.

Chicago-area native Nell Minow,
who goes by the alias Movie Mom as a critic for Beliefnet, is typical
of cinephiles who were encouraged by Ebert's success to follow their own
dreams.

She and others have noted that it
felt as if Ebert had softened his critical punch after Siskel died. But
these days, she observes, "he's a better writer and critic than he's
ever been. I think he's a better critic and writer than anyone has ever
been. All the stuff on his blog is incredible. People don't really
realize what an excellent writer he is."

Of
course, Ebert wasn't a solo act back in the day, and he isn't one now.
The undisputed MVP on Team Roger is Chaz, a former attorney who is vice
president of The Ebert Company, as well as the producer of Ebert Presents.

"Her
love was like a wind pushing me back from the grave," Ebert writes of
how the soulmate he met in 1989 gave him hope in his darkest days.

While
her husband takes a bathroom break, Chaz seizes the opportunity to
speak freely about her dedication to keeping Ebert, both the man and the
brand, alive and kicking.

"He's just an
original," she says. "I knew, I just had this deep-down feeling, that it
wasn't his time to go. And that he had something else to do. And there
would be a metamorphosis that he would have as a result of it."

This afternoon, she drives Ebert and their guest to a screening of Seven Days in Utopia,
a self-help parable that employs golf as a metaphor for life. (The
opening line of his eventual review says it all: "I would rather eat a
golf ball than see this movie again.")

On the way home, Chaz decides to check out a controversial new city attraction: a 26-foot sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her famous Seven Year Itch pose as her skirt billows upward, revealing her panties.

Ebert
points at the windshield. It dawns on his companions that he is zeroing
in on a group of Muslim women, taking photos while modestly wrapped
from head to toe in fabric, and noting the irony in such a
juxtaposition.

It is the principal consensus that Toy Story 3
is a masterpiece. Not because it stayed faithful to the sentiments of
its beloved predecessors, but because it dared to expand upon them. Toy Story
introduced an enjoyable one-note tale of a cowboy doll clinging to his
owner’s favoritism, allowing room for its follow-up films to explore the
humanity of this theme in much more depth.

This is the charge that faces the Finding Nemo franchise, what with sequel movie Finding Dory newly
announced — will the next chapter for the Pixar pisces just be a
rehashing of the 2003 road comedy? Or will the latest venture delve more
explicitly into the most interesting subject introduced in Finding Nemo: mental disability?

The superficial plot design of Finding Nemo likely spawned from road comedy staples from the days of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, but the journey beneath the sea hearkens to a more recent, much heavier entry in the genre: Rain Man. When the uptight straight man Marlin (Albert Brooks) takes up begrudgingly with flighty loner Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) on a globetrotting quest to find his lost son, we're transported to the cross country trek of Charlie and Raymond Babbitt (Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman) in Barry Levenson's
Oscar-winning picture. Self-serving Charlie teamed up with his
estranged brother Ray, an autistic savant, not out of compassion or
fraternity but to further his own conquest for his father's inheritance.

Along the way, Ray's disability provides a number of hurdles (he can't
board an airplane, can't go outside when it rains, can't be touched) and
opportunities (his knack for quick counting does the boys quite a few
favors at the blackjack table) alike for Charlie as their travels take
them to strange places (backwoods motels, doctors offices, Vegas
casinos) and situations ranging from comical to emotionally resonant.

With Marlin and Dory, it's the same song: Marlin monopolizes on
Dory's unique ability to read human English (and speak a bit of whale,
as she'll proudly boast) as they traverse the realms of sharks,
jellyfish, sea turtles, and a school of John Ratzenberger,
bounding from moments of laughter and tears all the while. But beyond
the surface value similarities, the relationship between Marlin and Dory
is reminiscent of that of the Babbitt brothers. Impatient Marlin is at
his wits' end with Dory's demanding mental state. The biggest hurdle
along the way for the duo is Dory's short-term memory loss, not a mere
character quirk in Finding Nemo but a bona fide disorder that prevents her from living independently
(when left alone by Marlin towards the end of the film, Dory's
anxieties kick up and overtake her memory altogether, leading her to
forget the entire mission she and her fair-weather had just braved).

Alongside a forgiving and accepting Marlin, Dory's traumas are assauged and her memories bolstered. But we don't imagine that Finding Dory will
do away completely with the trait that defined DeGeneres' fan favorite
character in the first movie. What they should do, instead, is really
tackle the issue, diving headfirst into a multifaceted, emotional and
intellectual story about living with (and living with someone living
with) mental disability. Sounds like a silly venture for a Pixar movie,
maybe, but just think of the Toy Story franchise: a trilogy
that expanded from "What if toys came alive when we left the room?" to a
heartrending allegory about self-preservation, loss, and identity.

Finding Dory has an opportunity to build upon the simplistic ideas that made Nemo a charming one-off feature —
to make the characters worthwhile in further episodes, we'll have to
see a deeper exploration of what makes them tick. Marlin is plagued with
insecurity, Nemo with a physical disability, and Dory (who, as the
title would indicate, is the focal character in the new movie) with a
mental disability. And this disability deserves an intricate center stage treatment.

As mental impairment is a subject matter that Hollywood has tackled time and time again, Finding Dory can learn from the example of past greats. Beyond Rain Man,
we have a number of other public and critical favorites that can
provide example of moving and insightful ways to depict the journey of a
mental disability sufferer. A constant among many of these films is the
director's drive to shatter society's expectations of the spotlit
figures — nobody believed much in Forrest Gump's titular hero at the beginning of the movie, but Tom Hanks'
most memorable cinematic character went on to take part in, if not
institute, just about every great event in American history. Ditto Radio, on a much smaller scale: Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrayed a mentally disabled young man whose spirit brought a small town football team to unity and grandieur.

Dory's limitations did not keep her from achieving victory in Nemo, but then again we didn't see the extent to which they anchor her down. Following in the footsteps of uplifting sagas like Forrest Gump and Radio, Finding Dory might
look to chronicle the wowing capabilities of memory-loss victims in the
same way: perhaps her indomitable zest for life will outweigh her
handicap in the sequel's story, branding Dory with the sort of embrace
of self-worth advertised by Hanks' and Gooding's pictures.

There are, of course, much less "whimsical" accounts of mental disability in recent cinema: the 2001 movie I Am Sam might have endeared viewers to Sean Penn's
character and invited them to truly understand the complexities of his
condition in an unprecedented way, the film didn't offer the fairy tale
ending many might have expected, or hoped for. It might unlikely for Finding Dory to bear to the wills of bleaker realism, but not implausible. Toy Story 3, Up, and Wall-E rank as three incredibly heavy, often dark, movies. In this vein — and borrowing from the attitudes of I Am Sam, of Rain Man, of the "Flowers for Algernon" film adaptation Charly — we might look for a Finding Dory that
actually sets standing limitations on Dory. She will never be able to
live on her own or even remember things prior to the present hour, it's a
somber state of affairs. Perhaps for a character so enamored, a story
this real is what fans deserve?

We have no idea just yet what Finding Dory has in store.
Maybe we'll just find ourselves in another seafaring journey filled with
laughs and whimpsers. But maybe we'll see a real examination of the
internal struggle of DeGeneres' character — that's how the movie can
truly work wonders; Pixar does best when Pixar dives deepest.

About Me

I am full-time Mass Communication faculty at Towson University in Maryland and adjunct faculty in the City University of New York (CUNY) Master's in Disability Studies program.
I research media and disability issues and wrote a 2010 book on the subject: Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, published by Advocado Press.
The media have real power to define what the public knows about disability and that's what I research.